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Starting in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft introduced sub-category configuration audit policies.  This provides administrators with added granularity when deciding which event logs are necessary to be logged.  More on  Advanced Audit Policies can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772712(WS.10).aspx [more]

The following command will pull the configuration for all of the new advanced security audit policies:

audipol /get /category:*

If you want to receive large email attachments (up to 50 Mb) using Exchange, there are several places that need to be checked to make sure large attachments are allowed.

The first place is on the Exchange Server. Within the Exchange server, there are actually a few different places this will need to be set:

• The first one is a global setting, in the Transport Settings (Organization Configuration/Hub Transport/Global Settings tab/Transport Settings properties/General tab). 
• The next place you'll need to look is in each receive connector (Server Configuration/Hub Transport/Tranport Server/Receive Connectors/Connector Properties/General tab).  Each connector has its own size limit. 
• The last place you'll need to check in Exchange is under the recipient's mailbox (Mail Flow Settings tab).

You may also need to make changes in other products (i.e. email filtering) as well. 

• If you have Barracuda filtering the default limit may already be set to 100 Mb.
• If your customer has a ZixVPM/ZixGateway, the default limit may be 25 Mb, so it will need to be increased if you need to receive emails larger than that.
• Finally, check your Firewall and/or Border router for any smtp inspection statements or smtp fixup.  If any of these exist it may prevent large emails (i.e. larger than 20 Mb) from getting through.

When you install a second SQL Reporting Services instance, it will place the databases in the default SQL instance by default. This happens even if both SQL instances are named instances. To place the second SQL Reporting Services databases in the correct SQL instance, you must do the following. [more]

1. Open SQL Reporting Services Configuration Manager
2. Select the Report Server you want to manage
3. Click the Databases tab > Change Database
4. Choose Create a new report server database
5. Enter the server name and SQL instance where you want the SQL Reporting Services databases installed
6. Take the defaults through the rest of the install and enter credentials as needed
7. Install your application and point it to the second SQL instance where you just setup the new SQL Reporting Services instance.

I was using a scanning tool to scan some servers and workstations.  I could pull some information from the scan, but it would fail when attempting to collect information via Remote Registry.  After checking that the Remote Registry service was started and the firewall was not enabled, I attempted to connect to one of the systems remotely using regedit instead of the scanning tool.  The connection would appear to succeed, but as soon as I attempted to click on an entry, I would get an error message “Cannot open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE: Error while opening key.”  [more]After doing some research, I found this TechNet article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892192).  It explains that systems that were upgraded from Windows 2000 may experience this issue because Windows 2000 ran Remote Registry under the “Local System” account, while XP/Server 2003 runs it under the “Local Service” account.  Once you give “Local Service” read access to a specific registry subkey on the target system, Remote Registry works.

A computer was getting the error message “the trust relationship between the workstation and the domain failed” when trying to log in.  Normally, the fix is to log on as the local admin and unjoin and rejoin the domain; however, in this case, the person did not know the local admin password. [more]

The solution was to disconnect from the network and then log in using cached domain admin credentials.  After logging in as the domain admin, we reset the local admin password, reconnect to the network, unjoined from the domain, logged on as the local administrators, and then rejoined the domain.

A user was getting the error message "Cannot open Outlook window" when starting Outlook.  Starting the program with the switch /resetnavpane fixed the problem.  The /resetnavpane switch clears and regenerates the Navigation Pane for the current profile.

IE cannot connect to HTTPS site if the certificate is using RSA Keys greater than 1024 bits.  This was preventing me from connecting (using IE9) to a device that had self-signed certificates with 768 bit RSA keys.  The issue was not affecting Firefox browsers.

 

There are several ways to get around this limitation, but the one I used was running command “certutil -setreg chain\minRSAPubKeyBitLength 512”

 

Microsoft released a patch in August that you can read more about here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2661254

On June 6th, the FFIEC announced the formation of a working group to further promote coordination across the federal and state banking regulatory agencies on critical infrastructure and cybersecurity issues.  To read the Press Release, visit http://www.ffiec.gov/press/pr060613.htm

This may be old hat for people that work with Exchange on a regular basis. However, for the occasional Exchange tinkers among us, there is a way to run PowerShell functions that are specifically built for Exchange without having to run the Exchange Management Shell. [more]

1. Open PowerShell on your workstation
2. Use the "PSSession" commands to bring up a PowerShell instance that is pointed at the Exchange server:
   • $session = New-PSSession -configurationname Microsoft.Exchange -connectionuri http://<<Exchange server name>>/powershell -credential <<domain name>>\<<Exchange admin account>>
   • Import-PSSession $session
   • NOTE: the account used in the first command must be a member of one of the Exchange administrator groups in AD. Simply having Domain Admin rights is not enough. When the first command is run, a pop-up box will prompt you for the account's password.
3. You can now run Exchange-specific PowerShell functions!